A digital future?

In (not quite) breaking news, The Guardian is breaking records for the success of its online brand. Clearly this is a newspaper embracing the digital age with aplomb. Whether or not it will continue to attract so many visitors should it follow one of the projected future paths of charging for online content is unclear (and hopefully we need never find out).

But journalists should be wary before throwing all their eggs into the digital basket. My colleague Peter Evans documents the plight of online journalists lower down the media beanpole. Peter’s warning to journalists should be heeded: online skills are crucial, and make us all the more employable, but the success of The Guardian is not something that has been replicated across the board. By all means build up an online presence, learn how to make the most of the new oportunities, but the basic skills needed for journalism are still the same as they always were, and should not be negelected.